Michigan firefighters dumped 3,000 gallons of water on burning Tesla

Firefighters and public safety officers in Washtenaw County got a searing experience with electric vehicle safety last autumn while battling a tragic automotive fire.

Firefighters who responded to a Sept. 18, 2024, fire near Plymouth dumped 3,000 gallons of water on a white 2020 Model 3 Tesla after it was struck by another vehicle. They also applied a fire blanket, which the fire consumed within 30 minutes.

The crash happened when a 2024 silver Nissan Rogue driving the wrong way on eastbound M-14 turned into the entrance ramp from Gotfredson Road, according to documents Michigan Capitol Confidential obtained through a records request from local and state agencies. The Rogue was going about 69 miles per hour when it struck the Tesla, killing both drivers and a passenger in the Nissan vehicle.

A bystander called 911 within two minutes of the crash, and an off-duty officer was one of the first people on the scene. One of the victim’s family members was notified immediately through a crash notification program on the Tesla, according to an emergency report.

About 16 minutes after the crash, the Tesla caught fire.

Firefighters spent more than four hours trying to put out the fire and cut out a body from the Tesla. One firefighter was hurt while removing the body, according to an official report.

“Shortly thereafter the battery pack caught fire and the vehicle began to burn rapidly,” said a Michigan State Police report. “The Model 3 had extensive fire damage and was burnt down to the frame.”

Responding to an electric vehicle fire is a relatively new challenge for first responders.

Gasoline-fueled vehicles can catch fire, but those fires end relatively quickly as the gas burns up or evaporates, said Jason Hayes, director of energy and environmental policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. But an EV can reignite and burn for hours.

Fires involving internal combustion engines “tend to burn very hot and go out relatively fast,” Hayes wrote in an email to CapCon. “EV fires burn hot and are next to impossible to put out because the chemical reactions in the battery create a mix of oxygen and toxic fumes that can keep the fire burning, even when water is present. We wrote about one wrecking yard digging a pit and (literally) submerging an EV that caught fire in their yard to put it out.”

When lithium-ion battery cells catch fire, are punctured, or reach an extreme temperature, the fire can repeatedly reignite in a phenomenon called thermal runaway. This causes the fire to burn hotter, faster, and even reignite after initially being extinguished, according to Underwriters Laboratories.

About 50,000 electric vehicles are registered in Michigan, according to the federal government. Although they account for a small percentage of Michigan’s vehicles, they present unique fire risks. An EV fire burns at roughly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, while a gasoline-powered vehicle on fire burns at 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the University of Clemson’s College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences.

Current EV technology isn’t ready for mass adoption, Hayes said.

“The examples in the documents CapCon received prove that EVs are not what we have been promised,” Hayes wrote.

Michigan policy mandates that there must be two million electric vehicles on state roads by 2030, but these vehicles are fraught with high costs and concerns about their environmental impacts, reliability and safety, Hayes said.

The state of Michigan has 30 EVs in its own vehicle fleet, CapCon has reported. The total fleet has about 14,482 vehicles.